But slowly, in the days that followed, the scene shifted.
The carbon monoxide detector—the same model in every home—was no longer in its place, or in the house at all.
The police started coming door-to-door, asking where we were that night, what we’d heard, what we’d noticed. And finally, we understood: Someone else had been in that house with Brandon and Fiona Truett.
Someone who had killed them.
SUNDAY, JUNE 30
HOLLOW’S EDGE COMMUNITY PAGE
Subject: REMINDER! Hollow’s Edge Fourth of July Pool Party Posted: 8:47 a.m.
Javier Cora: Come watch the Fourth of July fireworks with your neighbors on Thursday! We’ve got a great view of the lake show from our very own pool. All are welcome!
Margo Wellman: Is this such a good idea right now??
Javier Cora: Why wouldn’t it be?
* * *
Subject: Neighborhood Watch
Posted: 9:02 a.m.
Margo Wellman: Can we please get this going again?
Preston Seaver: Yeah, we kinda let it drop over the winter. I’d be in to start the rotation again.
Margo Wellman: Chase?? Didn’t you help organize this last time?
Charlotte Brock: Chase is no longer a member of this group.
CHAPTER 4
WHEN I CAME DOWN the stairs just after ten a.m., Ruby was cooking breakfast—toast and eggs, and leftover watermelon cubes in an open Tupperware container. I’d been waiting things out in my room, showering in my attached bathroom, checking the neighborhood message board, peering out my front window for any sign of activity—unsure how to approach another day with Ruby in this house.
“Morning!” she called, two mugs of coffee already on the counter, Koda eating from a fresh bowl of food at her feet. From her bright tone and easy smile, I didn’t think it was her first cup. She was wearing one of my old T-shirts and gym shorts, bare face and hair pulled back tightly. Her skin had bronzed slightly from the sun, except where it had turned pink high across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.
“Ouch,” she said, reaching out to the base of my neck, two cold fingers pressing into my skin. “You burned.”
I’d felt it in the shower, hot and painful under the water pressure. “How long have you been up?” I asked, taking the mug she offered me with an outstretched hand. Old habits. Old roles.
“A while. I think my body is so accustomed to the routine, it doesn’t know what to do with itself.” Head tilted to the side, as if waiting for me to ask a follow-up question.
The lawn mower started running next door, sparing me, and I peered out the window over the sink. It was Charlotte’s turn to cut the grass at the empty house this week, and one of her teenage daughters was out there now. From a distance, I could never tell which. They were only a year apart—seventeen and eighteen—and both had long dark hair and long pale legs and a nervous habit of running their fingers through the ends of their hair as they spoke.
“Do you have work tomorrow?” Ruby asked, jarring me from the window. I wondered if she wanted me out of the house or if she was just making conversation.
“I took off this week with the rest of the department.” This wasn’t entirely true, but it was believable. We were coming up on the Fourth of July, and the three women I worked with had rented a beach house together for the week with their significant others. They’d invited me to join them, but I’d passed, though the thought of the beach made my shoulders relax, my breathing slow. Instead, I’d joked that someone needed to hold down the fort—even though we worked a flexible summer, and technically, I was the one in charge.
But there was no way I was going in to work tomorrow. There was no way I was leaving Ruby alone here.
“Oh, hey,” she said, leaning against the counter, bending one leg, channeling nonchalant, “did you change the bushes out back?” She did not look at me when she said it, instead focusing on some imagined spot through the living room windows, toward the patio.
I tried to keep my voice level, carefree, hands wrapped around the warm mug as I brought it closer to my face. “Oh, in the spring, yeah.” No big deal, an afterthought. “Some guys were going around offering to do yard work, and I took them up on it.”
Ruby shifted to face me, setting her own mug back on the counter. “What guys?”
The lawn mower passed in front of the kitchen window, the noise grating, and I had to wait a moment before responding. “I don’t know, college kids looking to make an extra buck, I guess.”
She turned back to the counter, moved her mug to the sink. “Well, looks nice out back. But I think we have rabbits again. Something’s been in there.”